Who Am I?
by AMarguerite
Summary: A Les Mis Phantom of the Opera crossover that is pure insanity. Cosette is mistaken for Christine, Christine is mistaken for Cosette, and the first bassoon screams about the apocalypse.


A/N: This is a fic a friend and I wrote. Please imagine that Les Mis and The Phantom of the Opera were not twenty to thirty years apart. Yes, we warped the time- space continuum. Deal with it.  
  
Disclaimer: We don't own Les Mis OR The Phantom of the Opera. Okay? Okay.  
  
Cosette was lost.  
  
She had gotten up to go to the powder room to check her make- up, when, and this was the confusing part, some woman rushed at her and demanded why she was not backstage. The woman raced off, dragging Cosette with her.  
  
Once backstage, she had no clue what was going on. A dramatic-looking black-clad woman rushed at her, and dragged her into a room filled with colorful dresses, a mirror, and a lovely table and velvet stool  
  
"Ma petite! Where were you? You missed the rehearsal for the solo you're to sing in the second scene."  
  
"Solo?" Cosette asked blankly. "What solo?"  
  
The woman frowned. "You mean to say you don't remember? Have you been hit on the head? We have been rehearsing the opera for weeks now!"  
  
Cosette glanced around in confusion. "I think you have the wrong person...."  
  
At that, a perky, cute girl dressed as a ballerina positively bounced into the room. "Christine! When you're done dressing, Monsieur Reyer wants you to go over your songs again, and to warm up. Did you warm up already with your special tutor?"  
  
"Special tutor?" Cosette inquired faintly. "Christine? Who are you talking about?"  
  
The girl practiced a graceful pirouette, giggling. "Why you, of course! There aren't any other Christines working in the Opera House!"  
  
"And your special tutor... the Angel of Music?" the woman prompted, snapping her fingers at a few women outside, who darted into the room and began undressing Cosette.  
  
"What? Stop, please! What's going on?" Cosette attempted to keep her dress on. One of the women slapped her hand and yanked the skirt off the struggling Cosette.  
  
"You're being dressed," the woman in black informed her primly. "When you are done, you will be taken to Monsieur Reyer. Really, Christine..."  
  
"I'm not Christine!" Cosette insisted, waving her hands about in a way that could only be described as 'bird-like'.  
  
"Of course you are," one of the women muttered, forcing Cosette into a strange, sleeveless dress sparkling with glittering stones and gold.  
  
"I'm not!" Cosette protested, feebly struggling against the two women. It was much like a lark trying to fly through a glass window. "My name is Cosette! Please let me go!"  
  
The woman in black thumped her cane on the ground. "Christine! What do you think you're doing? Have you been hit on the head?"  
  
"Please! Let me go!" Cosette attempted to break free of her 'captors' and run out the door, but she, much like a bird which has been shot, tripped over the hem of the costume and flopped onto the floor.  
  
The girl darted, very gracefully, over to the desk and pulled out some smelling salts. "Oh dear Christine... are you sure you're all right?" With that, she knelt very elegantly and waved the salts under Cosette's nose. The two women who had been trying to dress Cosette finished, yanked Cosette up and began fiddling with Cosette's carefully curled and styled hair.  
  
"Please... what is going on!?"  
  
"You're done," announced one of the women, looking rather disgruntled. "You didn't need to make such a fuss." The women left, leaving Cosette in the room with the stern- looking woman and the girl.  
  
The woman forced Cosette to the mirror to check her appearance. Cosette was very startled to see herself in the low- cut dress with her hair down. She was more startled, however, when her reflection vanished to be replaced with a man in a half- mask and a cape. Cosette figured that the logical thing to do was scream. And scream she did.  
  
The man in the mirror winced. "Christine... please...."  
  
Cosette, deciding that she was delusional, stopped screaming long enough to collapse into a stool. "Why is there someone in the mirror?"  
  
The man in the mask frowned. "Come Christine, it is the second performance of 'Hannibal'. You're to play Elissa, Queen of Carthage... remember? And have you forgotten the Angel of Music already?"  
  
"So this is your tutor!" the girl chirped. "Bonjour!"  
  
Cosette felt faint. "Me... sing... as the lead soprano? Excuse me monsieur, but you must be mistaken. I'm not the lead soprano! I just came to see the opera with my husband." The man in the mirror looked shocked. Cosette waved her left hand in front of the mirror so that her wedding ring sparkled.  
  
The man's face darkened. "Husband, Christine? When were you married? To whom? That RAOUL?!"  
  
"That was a bad move," the woman muttered.  
  
"I'm not Christine," Cosette pleaded to the mirror, dizzily, widening her blue eyes. "And I don't know who you're talking about. My husband is the baron Marius Pontmercy."  
  
"Then who is this baron?" the man in the mirror boomed.  
  
"My husband," Cosette repeated. "He's a lawyer... an ex- revolutionary...." Cosette paused and shook her head vehemently. "But who is 'Christine'? I think you have me confused with so-"  
  
"HE WILL PAY!" the man roared.  
  
"What?" Cosette asked blankly and confusedly.  
  
"If you've forgotten, the Opera Ghost is a very jealous person," the woman muttered.  
  
The Opera Ghost was pacing, which was very odd, as he continued to disappear from sight at times. "And to think, Christine, all this time, I thought Raoul..."  
  
"Who is Raoul and who is Christine?" Cosette wanted to know, still feeling dazed. At that moment, someone knocked on the door.  
  
"I wasn't here," the Opera Ghost informed Cosette darkly. He vanished from sight. The woman in black opened the door to admit a handsome blonde man who seemed to closely resemble the Baron Marius Pontmercy. He had the same happy smile and kind eyes, and adorable puppy- dog charm, but he was about half a foot taller and dressed in bright colors... something the often depressed baron never did. As much as she loved her husband, it did get annoying when he sunk into his 'angsty' moods where he reflected over his dead friends or some random girl named Eponine.  
  
Sometimes, a dirty gamine would show up at the Pontmercy household, and swear her undying affection for the master of the house, but Cosette, usually wondering why in the world a lice- ridden street urchin would be in love with Grandfather Luc- Esprit Gillenormand (who, technically, was still the master of the house), would give them a few sous and send them off to the mental institution.  
  
However, Cosette's musings on the girls called 'Marie- Suzette' and 'Eppie- Sue' were interrupted by the tall blonde man, who swept her into his arms and attempted to kiss her. Cosette did what was the apparently logical thing to do, which was: scream.  
  
The man abruptly dropped her, and the Opera Ghost reappeared in the mirror and yelled, "Oh, do shut up Christine! You'll wreck your voice like that." He vanished again.  
  
The black- clad woman and the ballerina exchanged worried glances.  
  
"Who are you?" Cosette asked the man after a moment.  
  
The man looked at her oddly. "I'm Raoul. Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. Don't you remember the summer at the lake... our sudden re-acquaintance a few days ago... our newfound love?"  
  
Cosette, still on the floor, as her dress was tangled around her legs, looked at him through her hair. "Monsieur, you must be mistaken. I've never been to the Opera or a lake before. I was raised in a convent!"  
  
"What?" he asked blankly.  
  
"Christine," the little ballerina interjected. "Are you sure you're okay?"  
  
"I'm not Christine!" Cosette protested.  
  
The woman shook her head and smoothed out her (black) skirt. "I knew you were never quite right up here," she said tapping her forehead, "but I had no idea it was this bad, Christine. Why didn't you tell us?"  
  
"But I'm not Christine," Cosette cried desperately, attempting, as best she could, to stand up. It was a bit of a tragic sight, like a bird caught in a net.  
  
"You have the soprano voice, hair, eyes, and physique of Christine," the ballerina commented blithely, practicing the main positions of ballet.  
  
"But I'm not her!" Cosette nearly screamed.  
  
"But you have to be!" Raoul protested, gallantly extending a hand to her. Cosette placed her left hand in his and struggled to stand up. Raoul's gaze immediately rested on Cosette's sparkling wedding ring. "Christine... you're married?"  
  
"I'm not Christine," Cosette wailed. "But yes, I'm married. I have been for a year! It's my anniversary today."  
  
"You could have at least told me," Raoul said softly, in a hurt voice. "After all this time, I thought that maybe... you... and I... could be hus-"  
  
"Monsieur, I've never met you before," Cosette protested, straightening out the skirt, and attempted to float out of the door as she usually did. "And really, I'm not Christine!"  
  
The woman in black leaned toward Raoul. "Don't worry. Christine has always been... a bit... well...." She tapped her head, and then made a circle in the air around her ear. "You know monsieur? I knew this would happen. This was really the result of no one listening to all my dire warnings...."  
  
"It's a case of mistaken identity," Cosette protested feebly, unable to float out the door due mostly to the fact that she could not move her legs because they were so tangled in the skirt. "My name is Cosette Pontmercy, my husband is the Baron Marius Pontmercy, and we really just came here for a night at the Opera for tour first anniversary-"  
  
"She is obviously crazy," the woman said in hushed tones. "I have never heard of a Baron Marius Pontmercy."  
  
"Neither have I," Raoul whispered back.  
  
"His father was made a baron by Napoleon," Cosette tried to explain. "Not everyone recognizes positions given by Napoleon. But please, if you would be so kind as to-"  
  
"It doesn't matter if she's crazy or not," Raoul commented softly to the woman. "But Madame Giry... I love her."  
  
"I don't know who you are!" Cosette screamed. "I've never met you before!"  
  
"What did I tell you about your voice and screaming?" the mirror said sternly.  
  
Everyone was silent a moment as they stared at the mirror.  
  
Then Madame Giry decided, "It doesn't matter if she's crazy or not... just if she knows her part."  
  
"WHAT PART?!" Cosette wanted to yell. But screaming did not appear to be working. So very calmly and politely, Cosette murmured, "I do not know what or who you are talking about. If you would be so kind as to let me go back to the box my husband reserved for us, I would be very grateful.  
  
"Think of me," the small ballerina sang very sweetly.  
  
"Think of me fondly, when we've said goodbye," Cosette sang back automatically. She couldn't help it. Hannibal was one of her favorite musicals, and she knew the part of Elissa almost by heart.  
  
"Well, all that screaming in several octaves apparently got you warmed up," Madame Giry muttered. "But you sound different...."  
  
"Because I'm not Christine," Cosette repeated, pronouncing each word very carefully. "My name is Cosette Pontmercy. I may be a soprano, but I am not the lead soprano of the Opera Populair-"  
  
"Because technically Carlotta is," the mirror said bitterly. Once again, everyone turned to stare at the mirror.  
  
"If you don't stop that," Cosette warned sternly, after a moment, "I'll scream again, and you know how nobody likes that...."  
  
"Fine," the mirror said sulkily. It was then silent.  
  
"Well," Raoul said at last. "If you are not Christine, where is she?"  
  
Cosette shrugged. "I would not know monsieur."  
  
"More importantly, can you sing the entire part of Elissa, the mistress of Hannibal in the Opera?" the black- clad woman questioned quickly.  
  
"I don't know it all!" Cosette admitted, startled. "I've never been to the Opera, and Papa only gave me the sheet music for some of this opera...."  
  
"She can take the music onstage, I suppose," Madame Giry decided. "Meg, go alert Monsieur Reyer to the fact that his lead soprano has apparently been hit on the head and does not seem to know that she is, in fact, Christine Daae." Madame Giry shook her head. "Ah... this is the disaster beyond our wildest imaginings... Carlotta out with a broken leg, and Christine delusional and unsure of her part...."  
  
"I'm not Christine," Cosette repeated tiredly.  
  
"Then where is she?" Raoul wanted to know... still.  
  
That is indeed a good question. As a matter of fact, Christine did not truly know where she was. One moment, she had left backstage to go and try to find Raoul, the next, some man (a cute one, to be sure) had waved to her and pulled out a chair for her.  
  
"Cosette!" he said happily. "Did you find the powder room all right?"  
  
"What?" Christine said blankly. "Who are you?"  
  
The man laughed. "Ah, Cosette, in a teasing mood? Well, just to refresh your memory, I'm your husband, Marius Pontmercy."  
  
"I'm not married," Christine said blankly, standing up. "I think you have the wrong person."  
  
Marius cutely shook his head. "Of course, Cosette. Who are you then?"  
  
"Christine Daae," Christine replied quickly, unable to get out, as people were walking into the box and loitering in the door to it.  
  
"The lead soprano," Marius said wryly. "Of course, Cosette. Come sit down."  
  
Christine, baffled at this turn of events, attempted to shove her way out of the door.  
  
"Bonjour Madame Pontmercy!" several people greeted her.  
  
"How are you and your husband?" one (beautiful) woman asked.  
  
"What?" Christine asked, confused.  
  
"How are you and your husband?" the woman repeated.  
  
"My... husband?" Christine repeated, in shock.  
  
"Yes," the woman said, looking at her oddly. "Marius Pontmercy, the lawyer... my husband, Courfeyrac, is partners in the law firm with yours... remember? Due to my time- warping abilities I saved him from the barricades after living a perfect life in the twenty- first century-"  
  
A man who was apparently her husband sighed wearily. "Marie- Suzette, please do not bring that story up again... I'm sure you've told it to everyone here at least twelve times...."  
  
Christine felt dizzy. She figured that she was dreaming.  
  
"Cosette, are you sure you're all right? You look a bit... ah... different." Another woman, less pretty then Marie- Suzette murmured.  
  
"Who?" Christine asked after a moment, when no one responded.  
  
The woman looked a bit startled. "Why, you of course... I don't know any one else named Cosette...."  
  
"But that's not my name," Christine muttered, attempting to get away.  
  
The people laughed.  
  
"Oh yes... your actual name is Euphrasia," the less pretty woman laughed. "Ah, that was funny, Cos- Euphrasia... I suppose since you've been married a year, you want to use your proper name...."  
  
"But my proper name," Christine protested, figuring that she had to get these people to understand so that she could get backstage, "is-"  
  
At that moment, the violins began tuning.  
  
"Cosette, will you come sit?" Marius questioned, pulling out a chair for Christine.  
  
"I have to get backstage!" Christine said wildly. "The Angel of Music will not be pleased if I'm not there!"  
  
"Who?" Marius asked.  
  
"I have to sing!"  
  
"You do? Cosette, ma cherie, are you feeling all right?"  
  
"I'm not this 'Cosette' or 'Euphrasia' or whatever names she has!" Christine protested, attempting to fight against the crowd of people who apparently had no intention of sitting down. "My name is Christine Daae, and I need to get backstage and change!"  
  
"Cosette," Marius said kindly. "Did you happen to hit your head on anything... or did you eat anything strange? Are you feeling all right? Do you have a fever?"  
  
Christine wanted to scream, but that would strain her voice and might unable her to reach the several high As in Scene 3.  
  
"Oh, do sit," Marie- Suzette commanded her. "I'm also a ground- breaking woman doctor, and I think you are feeling faint. It is a good idea for you to sit down."  
  
Christine, who, as we know, was very easily hypnotized, quickly succumbed to the Marie- Suzette's miraculous powers and sat down next to the thoroughly confused Marius.  
  
After a few moments of tuning, and an overture that was agonizingly long, during which, Christine (haunted by the thought of how angry the Phantom would be if she missed her cues) attempted to run back stage. She was hampered by Marie- Suzette's mind control powers, which kept Christine in her seat so that Marie- Suzette could see the stage.  
  
Christine was terrified of what would happen. Carlotta, despite her broken leg, would try to hobble up on stage, which would not please the Angel of Music... he'd been in a bad mood lately, ever since he lost his spare half- mask, and Madame Giry had been unable to find another one. Yikes.  
  
So Christine was extremely surprised to see someone who looked just like her fly onstage a moment to late and nearly rip her costume. The person, blushing and stumbling about with the grace of a bird with a broken wing, pretty much followed the lead of little Meg Giry, the lead ballerina. She had a lovely voice (though it was completely different from Christine's) and managed to sing all the songs well (even the difficult one in Scene 3, which Christine had been having trouble with). However, in Act 4, when they brought out the elephant....  
  
The girl who looked like Christine crashed into the elephant while attempting to do a pirouette and flew backwards into the scenery, causing her skirt to rip and the backdrop come crashing down on the heads of the ballet rats, the stage hands, and all of the main characters, as well as the orchestra pit, where the first bassoon began screaming about the apocalypse and the second violin began to hyperventilate and the first trombone shriek about how they were all going to die a horrible death and how they could hear the first horseman of the apocalypse coming to destroy all peace.  
  
"Didn't I say Box Five was to be left for me?" a man in a mask demanded sternly, as the Opera curtains began to slide off their iron rods on top of the stage and onto the screaming Opera singers.  
  
"This is Box Six," Courfeyrac, the husband of Marie- Suzette said.  
  
"Oh," the Opera Ghost muttered a bit put- out.  
  
"Angel of Music!" Christine cried suddenly. "You know who I am!"  
  
"Christine?" the Angel of Music asked, dumbfounded. "But... you're... on- stage...."  
  
"That isn't me!" Christine protested, as the Christine, who was most definitely not Christine attempted to return things to normal by singing 'Think of Me' so that the curtains (or what were left of them) could close.  
  
"I can see that!" the Angel of Music snapped.  
  
"Have you seen Raoul?"  
  
"NO!"  
  
"Is that my wife on stage?" Marius asked in alarm.  
  
The beleaguered tormented genius that was the Opera Ghost sighed. "Her name wouldn't happen to be... Cosette Pontmercy, would it?"  
  
Marius nodded vigorously. "Yes, and I'm the Baron Marius Pontmercy... well, as appointed by the great and noble Napoleon Bonaparte. I don't suppose you recognize titles of nobility given out by that most glorious leader of all, Bonaparte?"  
  
"I need to find a chandelier or something to smash," the Angel of Music sighed.  
  
"That has nothing to do with Bonaparte," Marius protested.  
  
"DO YOU WANT YOUR DEATH TO BE PAINFUL?" the Opera Ghost roared.  
  
"Uh..."  
  
"Don't answer that."  
  
"Uh... Angel of Music?" Christine asked quietly.  
  
"What?" he snapped.  
  
"Um... is that supposed to happen?" Christine pointed at the chandelier, which had, of its own accord, become untied and was about to crash onto the stage in front of Baroness Pontmercy.  
  
"Cosette!" Marius exclaimed, jumping from his seat and almost tumbling into the row in front of him.  
  
"Um... I've got to go," the Angel of Music said tiredly. "Must go... compose music or something... I suppose the chandelier crashing is going to be blamed on me... but didn't I destroy it already?"  
  
"You destroyed the last one," Christine said, puzzled, "but this is the new one, that Raoul," here she sighed romantically and stroked her red scarf, "bought for the Opera."  
  
The Opera Ghost threw up his hands and vanished from sight.  
  
"Does he... normally do that?" Courfeyrac asked in confusion.  
  
"Oh, Erik!" Marie- Suzette called out rapturously. "I'm an amazing soprano! Don't you want to teach me?"  
  
"Not really," was the muffled reply.  
  
"But I'm far more sane and beautiful then Christine!" she protested.  
  
"Her slight schizophrenia is part of her appeal," the dismembered voice explained.  
  
"Is that a compliment?" Christine asked in confusion.  
  
"The chandelier!" Marius exclaimed as it crashed on stage. "COSETTE!"  
  
With that, he leapt out of the box and onto the innocent bystanders below. They all crumpled and began moaning in pain, while Marius hobbled toward the stage, where everyone was screaming.  
  
"Not again!" one of the Opera managers, the one with glasses, moaned. "Why?"  
  
"Cosette!" Marius called.  
  
"IT IS THE BEGINNING OF THE END!" the first bassoon shrieked.  
  
"We're dying!" the ballet rats screamed. "Our legs will be broken!"  
  
"This is why you must heed my warnings!" Madame Giry said ominously.  
  
"Take me as your new student Erik!" Marie- Suzette exclaimed.  
  
"Aren't you my wife?" Courfeyrac wanted to know.  
  
"Where is Christine?" Raoul asked, also darting on stage.  
  
"Raoul! I'm up here!" Christine called.  
  
"AAAAAHHHHH!" screamed the Opera patrons, fearful of their lives.  
  
"SHUT UP!" Erik roared, randomly appearing on stage.  
  
Surprisingly, everyone obliged, except for second violin, who continued to hyperventilate.  
  
"Okay... there has been a misunderstanding," he said, walking back and forth on stage. "The sopranos are all out, so we had to use a new girl who did not know the choreography... ah... and... um... the building repair people were lazy and didn't install the chandelier correctly. I assure you, it most certainly isn't the end of the world, and I think we should all go home and go to sleep. This is just a big misunderstanding, and we should all forget about it." Very hypnotically, he repeated, "We should all forget about it," over and over until everyone was in a trance. When he clapped his hands, they all fell fast asleep, and when he whistled, they all woke up.  
  
After puzzling over how that worked a minute, Erik left to go work on his opera.  
  
Cosette, confused, struggled out from behind the chandelier and went to Marius. She kissed him on both cheeks and hugged him, then blankly asked, "Cherie... why am I dressed like this?"  
  
"Is it a masked ball?" Marius asked, just as blankly.  
  
"I suppose so."  
  
With that, Marius and Cosette left the Opera and decided that since the whole scenario was completely out of the realms of physical possibility, they would just forget it and never wander out of the fandom again. Or did they?  
  
THE END... or is it? Mwahahahahahahahaha! *crashes chandelier* 


End file.
